From Eastbourne to Hyderabad

Ok so there is going abroad to do a marathon, Paris and Berlin spring to mind, but then Andy Stephens goes a step further and completes the Hyderabad marathon in India in an excellent time of 4 hours and 7 minutes; that’s his 10th marathon in the bag. Not only that but on the Saturday before Andy completed the Hyderabad 5k race in 24:45 finishing in 6th place after deciding to save his legs for the marathon to follow and not push for a podium finish. Paul Blackwell steams on towards the 100 marathon mark completing numbers 86 and 87 in a double over the weekend in the Planes, Trains and Automobiles marathon, Saturday saw 7.5 laps of Caldecott Lake in Milton Keynes whilst Sunday saw another 7.5 laps but in reverse! Paul is planning number 100 on the 23rd October which will also see him complete 52 marathons in 52 weeks –that’s some going.

[Andy Stephens after completing the Hyderabad Marathon]

Talking about some going; Adam Smith completed the South Coast 100k challenge (yes thats 100k!) which sees a route along the south coast from Eastbourne to Arundel running up on the Seven Sisters Country Park which has views out across Beachy Head and with 70% of the course on coastal paths this is certainly a challenge. Adam completed this epic ultra run in 11 hours, 23 minutes and 59 seconds which saw him take 2nd place overall – a fantastic achievement well done Adam.

Sunday saw a big splash of Blue out on the coast at Mersea for the annual 5 and 10 mile race around the island. Taking on the 5 mile race were Gemma Colling (44:22), Mark Crittenden (52:32) and Linzi Iddon (1:11:29), fancying the longer 10 mile race were Simon Miller (1:14:16), Paul Hollidge (1:17:25), Debs Cubberley (1:33:51) and John Bush (1:57:21). This race saw Debs bag a personal best time with her 1:33:51 which is also a bronze club standard whilst Gemma also stormed to knock over a minute off her previous best time to record a new PB of 44:22.

[GBRC Blue at Mersea]

The weekend started early for Rich Moor who took on the Ipswich Summer 5k completing the undulating 2 lap course of Christchurch Park in 21:06. Saturday’s Parkrun paid homage to the Olympics with #IamTeamGB being the call for regular runners to bring someone else along to take part in this weeks run with a record 419 people taking part. There was a massive turnout in Colchester for the 2 laps round the Castle with 10 GBRC toeing the start line Lee Clarkson (22:58), Martin Owen (25:39), Claire Groves (26:47), Gary Hill (27:18), Scott Young (27:54), Paul Hollidge (27:57), Luke Groves (31:18), John Bush (32:37), Caroline Searle (41:34) and Linzi Iddon (43:07). This run saw Caroline notch up her 50th Parkrun which she completed running with her friend and her goddaughter (who completed her 1st 5k run).

Harwich Parkrun saw 118 runners of which Malcolm Jarvis recorded another top 10 finish in 21:00, Patrick Reynolds (23:37), Kevin James (24:01), Sandra James (35:33) and the tailrunning Rebecca Conran (1:00:23) all completed the 5k. Our tourism this week was undertaken by Matt Jones who ran the Maldon Prom Parkrun and recorded a consistent 21:37 the second time he has recorded that exact finishing time in a month! Venturing further afield was Russ Sharp who gained a podium place at the Isle of Wight Parkrun finishing 3rd out of 301 runners in a time of 19 minutes dead.